The La Cresta plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Showers likely; cooler
Sunny
Showers likely
Showers likely
Mostly sunny
89° on Nov. 11, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 88° in 1900.
La Cresta’s center stands about 520 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 390 ft to 830 ft, a difference of 440 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Adelaide, about 3,370 ft, 14 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Plio-Pleistocene and Pliocene loosely consolidated deposits (sandstone, conglomerate), from the Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 10×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Oligocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 34 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granodiorite. Age: Permian to Tertiary, 2.6 to 260 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.3 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
La Cresta has a hot desert climate. Summer afternoons average 98° in July; winter nights fall to about 40° in December. About 6 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 La Cresta normally reaches 68° and falls to 46°. The record high is 85°, in 1933; the record low 24°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.61 in, fell in 1952.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Bakersfield Area threaded record (Bakersfield Airport, 5 miles northwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
